THE GOLEM PROJECT Creation, Animation and the Re-enchantment of the World A Master’s Degree Essay by Hilde Retzlaff at The Royal Institute of Art 1 Introduction The symbolism and message of the Jewish Golem1 myth , in which a magical creature is fashioned from clay and brought to life, bear resemblance to Genesis and other ancient myths such as the Greek myth of Prometheus, who fashioned man out of clay, stole fire from the Olympian Gods and gave it to mankind. Characteristic for these myths is man’s attempt to master a power that is reserved for divinity. The myth serves as a warning about exploring the limitations of human knowledge and power, in particular, the power of creation and by extension of creating artificial life. The imagery and symbols in the story recur across many human cultures, so extensively, it could be regarded as a universal myth with many local variations. The stories have appeared unrelated to each other in various civilizations and have been approached through religion, literature, art and popular culture for millennia. The never-fading interest in this theme suggests, that it raises questions at the core of the human experience. In modern times, they typically belong in the science fiction genre, where the theme of creating artificial life, or intelligence, and the ethical ambiguities surrounding it, is characteristic for the style. Maybe, the question that has captured our interest most about artificial life is, what it can teach us about human life and what it means to be human. The “mad scientist,” Dr. Victor Frankenstein, is driven by an ambition to explore the animation of dead matter, as portrayed by Mary Shelley. One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.2 In a technologically advanced and secular society, the most fundamental question at the chore of our existence: “what is it to be a human being?” can be answered, perhaps solely, through the investigation of recreating human life through technology. In a society where the concept of the human soul is no longer scientifically viable, what makes us different from machines? Explaining the human conscience is a task, in front of which, science stands footed. The yearning to answer these questions and to push the border of human knowledge can seem so obsessive, that the potential risks of creating these artificial intelligences are ignored. Many stories on this theme, from Genesis and Sumerian and Greek creation myths, to Golem, Frankenstein; or, The Modern is an animated anthropomorphic being that is magically created (גולם :A] golem (/ˈɡoʊləm/ GOH-ləm; Hebrew]1 entirely from inanimate matter (specifically clay or mud) 2 Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1831. chapter 4. 2 Prometheus, to present day sci-fi, provide an ethical discussion and a warning of these consequences. The classic hubris theme, in which man challenges the gods and brings upon him his own downfall, appears deeply embedded in these stories. In the literary classic, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, Dr. Frankenstein warns his friend about challenging the laws of nature and explains how this lead to his eventual destruction: After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter. The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils. But this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result. What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp. [...] I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.3 Lucifer’s downfall, one of the most famous stories on the hubris theme. Illustration for John Milton’s Paradise Lost by Gustav Doré, 1866. 3 Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1831. chapter 4. 3 For my project, consisting of two parts, this essay and a sculptural work, the Golem story will be used as a starting point, though it is not the first, nor the most predominant myth of its kind. I will further analyze some other myths following the same pattern. The main reasons for focusing on the Golem, and not say the gingerbread man, or my favorite book Frankenstein, is primarily the material used to create the form – clay; and secondly the corresponding rituals of animating the form. Both the material and the rituals associated with the Golem will be used for my sculptural project. A prominent theme in my work, which relates to the study of archetypes, is the unraveling of something hidden – the deciphering of a hidden, perhaps divine, language. This notion, which connects to my own personal faith, has guided me, through my brief background in the fields of theology and anthropology and into the field of fine arts. The same concept is central in my method of choice, the deconstruction of found objects. The series of works Untitled (2014), Logograms (2016) and Papers (2015–2017) deal with this “language” in a quite direct way, approaching written symbols. For Untitled, I dug for imagery, and later text fragments, in the layers of advertisement posters; For Logograms, I interpreted the shapes of Styrofoam packaging of electronic products as signs of a language; and for Papers, I deconstructed the most printed books in history, the Bible and Quotations by Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, by turning them into hand-made paper sheets. The method of “deciphering a hidden language” further connects to the concept of re-enchantment, which is also elemental to my practice. This concept derives from early 20th century sociologist and economist Max Weber’s notion of disenchantment. The, by Weber formulated, “Entzauberung der Welt” also translates as the “demystification of the world”, and is signified by the evanescence of mystical forces and “magical means” in the process of intellectualization and secularization in Western society. In 1917 Weber gave a lecture on this topic, which later became a literary classic, with the title Science as a Vocation, in which he illustrates this phenomenon through the following example: Does it mean that we, today, for instance, everyone sitting in this hall, have a greater knowledge of the conditions of life under which we exist than has an American Indian or a Hottentot? Hardly. Unless he is a physicist, one who rides on the streetcar has no idea how the car happened to get into motion. And he does not need to know. He is satisfied that he may ‘count’ on the behavior of the streetcar, and he orients his conduct according to this expectation; but he knows nothing about what it takes to produce such a car so that it can move. The savage knows incomparably more about his tools. When we spend money today I bet that even if there are colleagues of political economy here in the hall, almost every one of them will hold a different 4 answer in readiness to the question: How does it happen that one can buy something for money – sometimes more and sometimes less? The savage knows what he does in order to get his daily food and which institutions serve him in this pursuit. The increasing intellectualization and rationalization do not, therefore, indicate an increased and general knowledge of the conditions under which one lives. It means something else, namely, the knowledge or belief that if one but wished one could learn it at any time. Hence, it means that principally there are no mysterious incalculable forces that come into play, but rather that one can, in principle, master all things by calculation. This means that the world is disenchanted. One need no longer have recourse to magical means in order to master or implore the spirits, as did the savage, for whom such mysterious powers existed. Technical means and calculations perform the service. This above all is what intellectualization means.4 The process of re-enchanting the world would then mean bringing back – at least the experience of – these mystical forces and “magical means”. This always appealed to, and motivated, me as an artist, which is evident to anyone, who takes a closer look at my practice. I endeavor to create objects, which are mystical and inexplicable, as of their content, yet simple and irreducible in their shape.